Tartarus
by ReBirth-Syndrome
Summary: Let me recall a tale for you guys, a tale on how we slowly got ourselves into crap that we never wanted planned on being part off.


Holotape recording #0089:

2279.5.21

Hey, this thing on? It is? Alright.

This is captain Carl Jones of Tartarus Inc. , chief of the Capital Wasteland branch. We're a PMC outfit sent to establish a presence in the area, PMC standing for : Private Military Contractors, which is just a fancy term for Mercenary. If anyone is listening to this, then I sure hope you guys love a good, long, bedtime story ….

Let me start this little tale by explaining a bit about myself; As stated earlier my name is Carl Jones, I'm some thirty-four year old Joe from Kentucky and despite what you guys used to hear on the old Enclave broadcasts; no, it didn't flourish or whatever, it was a wasteland like anywhere else. I was raised in a nice little community that was had walls to keep the raiders and other unsavory things outside. Learned how to read, write, do my numbers and shoot a gun. When I was in my late teens I got hit by wander lust, couldn't keep still so I left. Eventually I ended up joining Tartarus and after ten years they sent me to the Capital Wasteland.

That's enough of my personal life, now let me tell you what were my objectives; Establish a presence in the area, locate a suitable building to act as a HQ and to recruit locally. Easy enough really, the 'establish a presence' part needed some working but the other two were easy to do. That's all I was supposed to do, but as you can guess right now things got a tad more difficult; it's the reason why I'm recording this whole thing.

Okay it's time to start the story, this may be a long one so try not to doze off.

It was a Sunday, the month I think was April and the year was 2278. A lot had happened that year and the one before it but I'll get into those later. I was travelling down the road alongside my Brother-in-Arms, a guy who went by the name of Nemesis. He was an Asian guy who stood at six feet, had brown hair styled in a ridiculous Mohawk, had a nose the size of a tomato and brown eyes . Of this two man team he acted as sniper and stealth specialist. He had the deceptively scrawny yet pretty athletic build under the reinforced leather armor which was standard in our outfit. His main tool of death-from-afar was .308 chambered scoped hunting rifle and when he got a little closer, an H&K 10mm SMG, closer still? An N99 10mm with a lovely silencer if need be, even closer you ask? A pair of Combat Knives sharpened to a shiny point!

As I was saying; we were travelling down the road, it wasn't really a road per say but rather we were just walking through the country side.

[Christ, you gotta be the worst story teller I ever heard]

What the….? What's wrong with how I'm telling it?

[For one thing you're boring da hell outta me, you ever hear da sayin' 'Dead men tell no tales'? Well right now I'm thinkin' it should be tweaked ta add you]

You still didn't say whats wrong? Other than its boring you apparently.

[Well for one thing, other den calling my nose big, you fergot to describe yourself dumbass!]

Alright alright… What to say about my looks? Well I'm five foot eight inches, got messy brown hair…..

[Dat defies the law of gravity]

…..Got a prominent forhead…..

[So prominent dat Laser beams could be reflected by its shiny surf- OW, Why'd ya punch muh nose?]

…Moving on, I also have blue eyes. Now I had a body build to survive, it wasn't athletic like those Brotherhood guys, but it could keep up with the best. Like my Associate….

[Best Bud!]

… I wore the standard Reinforced Leather Armor that Tartarus provided. Unlike Big Nose, while I had similar stealth skills, I was more up close and personal. Instead of a lovely hunting rifle, I used a 5mm AK-102 assault rifle. A 10mm SMG was my back up alongside a pair of 9mm pistols, carry the silencers for them too and for the messy business of Close Quarters Combat there was my lovely Bayonet Knife, which I could fit on my assault rifle.

[Which you never do, seriously when we're not sneaking around in tight spots and in a gunfight you that thing could be a lifesaver when yer out of ammo]

Would you stop interrupting? Anyway, FINALLY back to the topic at hand… You see, we just arrived in the Capital Wasteland from the East Center Commonwealth through a nice lovely car tunnel that had some of those Brotherhood symbols. It was a week or two since we left the home base and we only stopped in a couple of settlements along the way. We were itching to stop in a settlement since our supplies were running low; it was a tiresome journey of course… raiders, wildlife and other crap just kept trying to kill us, the heat of the wasteland sun would cause us to get thirsty real quick and we could only take small quick sips of irradiated water from our canteens. At night one of us would end up asleep for a few hours while the other kept watch for any sign of trouble, then we'd switch. Often enough we had to sleep under the stars other than the safety of a building.

As we travelled we came upon the very small settlement of Girdershade…

[Wasn't dat the place with the Nuka Chick and da horndog who tried getting with her?]

Yep, those were the ones. They were the only residents of the small settlement, because traders hardly came by here and with plenty of daylight left we stayed only for a couple of hours to east lunch and view the 'Nuka Chick's ' Nuka collection then moved on. The resident's , as eccentric as they were, pointed us toward a tall building known as Tenpenny Tower. It was a building owned by its namesake owner, Alistair Tenpenny, they warned us that the residents were snobs…..

[And they were right, Da only pleasant company was dat old retired adventurer and da mercs acting as da security]

Heh, even the local whore was a snobby bitch. But we're getting ahead of ourselves, by sunset we arrived at the tower, the tower itself was an impressive sight, even if there was a giant scrap wall slapped to its side. Because of the great nuclear war in 2077, not many buildings like it survived. It had an outer wall protecting it but there were no patrols. We could only assume that with a tall building like that, there had to be several lookouts in several of the rooms. Pressing the intercom button at the front gate, we were met with the voice of the guard manning it.

"State your intentions, otherwise please leave the private property of Alistair Tenpenny" He said, sounding bored.

[How da hell could you tell dat? He was behind an Intercom]

Hey, its guard duty and your setting behind a wall. Its boring as hell! Moving on… "We're Military Contractors looking to rest and resupply"

[Can't believe you actually said that…..]

"Military Contractors? What the fuck does that mean" We were met with silence, a few minutes later we were met with another voice.

"Excuse me, did you guys say you were 'Military Contractors' ?" This voice had a bit more authorative tone to it.

"Yeah….. to be clear that means were Mercs"

"I know what it means, I just didn't think there were jackasses who actually used the term"

['Cept us]

"Listen I can't give you access, only Caravans and Building residents were allowed…Unless…."

"I'm guessing that 'unless' means you want us to pay….." By that time I already had my Cap pouch ready….. If we didn't need supplies I would have settled with one of the nearby abandoned houses.

"You guessed right, because we're of the same business I'll only take a hundred caps" When he said that, Nemesis and I realized what the Girdershade duo were right, this place was inhabited by rich snobs, rich enough to hire an entire mercenary group to act as its security force.

"Fine, hundred caps it is" Hundred caps was a lot, even if it was just to get in 'Could've resupplied us by half' was my thought. A moment later the gate opened and we saw the voice that was talking to us, along with a bunch of other mercs that were either manning the gate or generally doing whatever it is they were doing.

"I'm Chief Gustavo, head of security" He declared in a proud town, in his arms he cradled an R91 Assault rifle, the US army's service rifle before the bombs hit. While we were heavily armed, Gustavo and his boys had a plethora of these rifles along with something even more precious…. Combat Armor 'Sheesh, they got more caps than I thought' was the thought that came to me, Tartarus had a lot of money of its own, but because of its large size most were issued with Leather Armor while things like combat armor were issued to the guys of BIG BIG importance to the Organization.

Gustavo himself, while he had an authorative voice, was nothing special looking. The man looked to be in his forties, brown hair and was no taller than any other average Joe, he looked like he had a short fuse, so we didn't want to get into any trouble with him and his boys.

[No shit, a large amount of guys with combat armor and assault rifles aren't on my list of people to 'mess with']

"Listen, I don't usually let guys in, even with a toll. But since I know what its like being a merc, I'm letting you guys in. I've sent word to proprietor of the towers general store to stay open a little bit, get what you need from her then get out, you have three hours. What the heat you guys are packing, I don't want to deal with a bunch of whiny 'Concerned Citizens' " We nodded, to be honest if Gustavo was this pleasant I didn't want to stick around to meet the locals.

After getting what we needed from the Boutique La Chic…..

[Gah, why couldn't she given a normal name]

Its French, 'sides I like it. After getting about a weeks' worth of food, refilling our canteens with PURE water…..

[Seriously, no wonder we got sent here. Dis water is purer than pure]

….And resupplying our are ammo, we spent the remaining hours resting at the Tower's watering hole. There we met a guy named Herbert Dashwood, the guy was apparently an old adventurer of sort, his stories being told on the Capital Wasteland's local radio station, Galaxy News Radio. He was a fun old guy, his stories were a good way to pass the time and he didn't mind that half of the stories made him look like an incompetent fella while his ghoul 'Manservant' was more the savior of the duo.

With the remaining hours gone, we ended up spendingat one of the old abandoned houses I mentioned earlier. Next day we ended heading further east, our next destination was Megaton, a few days east of Tenpenny Tower. It was actually where we needed to go; Nemesis and I were supposed to meet the remainder of the group who were sent here, they were sent before us to gather intelligence on the Capital Wastelands local groups and find out possible locations where we could set up the HQ.

During the third day, the last day on our journey to megaton, we were walking under the hot wasteland sun. Because Nemesis had better eyes then me he took point, his eyes surveying the broken road ahead of us and the countryside beside us. I stopped suddenly when he raised his hand, falling on one of his knees, he looked through his scope. A few moments after he turned to me and said " Jonesy, we got us a bunch of raiders hiding on dat hill up ahead"

"They notice us yet?" He shook his head left and right, he had a bloodthirsty smirk on his face. I just nodded and said "Alright, you got a count on 'em?"

"About five, shitheads look to be on da low part of da scale, Dem heads are poking out like a molerats" I chuckled at his analogy. Our plan was simple, Nemesis would go around and try to get a higher vantage point. Me? I'd wait a bit, Nemesis would be hulking around my rapid firing guns while I just walked into their ambush with just my knife and pistols.

For it to work, I had to appear to be carrying less heat than them 'Lower their guard, let them think they can have the advantage' Is what we're taught during training, if the enemy is gullible enough, then the illusion of them thinking they have the advantage would work in our favor. As I walked into the ambush point, five ugly mugs came out of hiding. Three dirty looking guys and two ugly looking dames wearing so called 'armor'.

[Shit, my old sleeping rags offered better protection]

They weren't heavily armed, of the five, only three were armed with firearms and only one of these firearms would pose somewhat of a threat 'Two pistols, one SMG and two poolsticks' All the weapons were in poor condition. Since I was supposed to look weak, I put on a scared look and raised my hands. Their toothy smiles made me laugh "H-hey, look I don't want any trouble. I-I'll give you everything I got" They only grinned at me, their leader especially, one of the ugly dames. She was the one with the submachine gun, when I looked at her I knew she only had the one magazine in her gun. At the time I wondered if it was even fully loaded.

"Sorry handsome, you don't honestly expect us to just 'let you go' do ya? We're gonna have fun ruining that pretty face of yours" She said wickedly, her SMG pointed at me. I was only grinning on the inside, by this time Nemesis already found a good position and set his sights on our location. His Crossahair was set on one of the raiders, the queen herself to be exact.

"Well, sorry but this pretty face isn't going to get even a scratch" I said with a smile slowly forming on my face and lowered my arms. The Raider bitch formed a scowl on her face and was looking to shoot my legs, it went away ina flash as Three-Oh-Eight bullet pierced her head and splattered blood and gray matter as the corpse collapsed. In shock, the remaining raiders were frozen in place for a brief moment, allowing me to pull out my pistols and gun down the two pistol totting ones and Nemesis brought down one of the pool stick wielding ones. The last one, knowing there was no point in resisting, dropped his own stick, got on his knees and raised his hands.

"H-hey, don't shoot me. I-I just became a raider three days ago" His voice was young, in fact looking closer at him, he couldn't have been over six-teen or seven-teen. He was just a kid overall, probably a survivor of a previous raid or was just looking to survive and thought being a raider was a good career move.

"Did you kill or torture anybody during the time you joined?" I asked, normally I'd kill a surrendering raider without missing a beat. But since this guy was young…. I didn't want another young blood on my hands.

"None, I swear it…..P-please don't kill me" He cried, trying to hold back tears. I could only give the kid the benefit of the doubt, didn't want to waste a bullet. I motioned for the kid to leave and he went just like that, being by himself and only had a pool stick the wasteland would be the god that judged his face. If he reached a settlement he would have got his second chance, if he died, then he paid for whatever dark sin he committed.

Five to ten minutes later I met up with Nemesis "I see dat softness issue didn't go away anytime soon" I didn't bother to answer as I took back my guns, the Raiders guns were placed in my pack. We split the 10mm bullets between the two of us while the crappy guns we planned on selling them to some scav or Megatons' local general store.

A few hours later we saw the biggest pile of scrap in our life, from the distance we could make out it was set up in a dome shame with what looked to be a large gate in front, above it a there was lookout armed with a rifle. In front of the gate was a Protecteron wearing a cowboy hat.

It was at this point we realized we had reached Megaton.

[Gee, end it right there why don't ya]

…..Shut Up.


End file.
